About Google Webmaster’s New Tool, Search Analytics

By now we all must be aware of that a new feature has been added to Google Webmasters tool. Prior to going into detail regarding the new feature, there’s also a new update where the search engine giant has revamped Google Webmaster tool to Google Search Console and has also changed the logo. The reason for doing this is, Google believes this tool is not just for webmasters since it is an instrument that is meant for the entire user. In Google’s words “We have all kinds of Webmaster Tools fans: hobbyists, small business owners, SEO experts, marketers, programmers, designers, app developers, and, of course, webmasters as well… So, to make sure that our product includes everyone who cares about Search, we’ve decided to rebrand Google Webmaster Tools as Google Search Console.” Coming to the Search Analytics, the feature will be replacing the Search Queries report and has been updated with the aim of improving the preciseness of search traffic analysis.

What’s in store for a webmaster?

The new updated feature gives a clear understanding of website traffic. This can be clearly witnessed as users can now compare the desktop and mobile traffic. Users can event fragment the data as per their convenience. If you are curious to know how the Mobilegeddon has impacted your site’s ranking, this too is possible by comparing the before and after phase. Want to know the traffic for different countries? You can also narrow down your search data by choosing a particular country to know the information on impressions. In short, the feature allows you to compare different values in a grouping category, you can change the grouping of data, filter your data by the group type, choose your metrics.

Following are metrics of Search Analytics:

Clicks

Impressions

Click Through Rate

Position

The best part about the new feature is grouping by queries. Since SEO requires having knowledge about the what terms users using with regards to your website and grouping of queries will really help users to know what is driving to their website. As an SEO expert, you need to understand that keywords which you have targeted actually lead to traffic. By grouping, you will come to know which least targeted keywords are driving traffic to your site but beware of irrelevant ones. Another benefit of grouping queries is you can monitor which long tail keywords are getting impressions.

Comparing impressions and CTR is now becoming more enhanced, thanks to the Search Analytics. To ensure the success of your campaign, it is essential that both the metrics are performing accurately and if something is coming in the way of improving your traffic of landing pages, you can know this what is causing low CTR.

The Search Type mainly refers to the type of search performed by a user based on the web, image, video and so on. The tab on Search Analytics allows you to compare data by search type but not a group. The reason why grouping by search type is not supported because the results page layout is very different for different search types.

By now, you must have got an idea about Search Analytics feature and you can start exploring the update. However, you still have the choice to go back to the old Search query report in Webmasters tool.